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In the main piazza there stands the bastion built in 1564 as a defence against attacks by pirates. In the Peagna hamlet you can visit the old village of Capriolo, where there is an old church with remains of fifteenth-century frescos, the medieval Anthia spring and the Silvio Lai Palaeontological Museum. In the San Giorgio hamlet you can visit a 12th-century Romanesque-Gothic church.

On the origin of Ceriale there are no precise notices. Some testimonies suggest the existence of a first Roman settlement. The village became well-known in 1255, when it was at the centre of a territorial dispute between the commune of Albenga and its bishopric. Subsequently it was annexed to the Republic of Genoa from which it had its own podestà (mayor). A tragic turn in its history came on the night of 2 July 1637, when it was invaded by Algerian pirates, who deported or killed half the population. After the liberation of the Ligurian territory by the Napoleonic troops, in 1798 it became an autonomous commune and followed the vicissitudes of the area down to the attainment of unity.